When life gives you ice…eat gelato

Having made it home from First Hill on Monday when it was still an option, Martin and I decided no driving at all until Thanksgiving Day. Today we walked to downtown Ballard, happy to see Ellen Fitzgerald back at the library (her snow location) and crunch our way down Ballard Avenue.

We perused the new Dish it Up store and its cooking demonstration schedule. Sutter Hearth and Home was seeing plenty of boot-stomping traffic. Then Martin insisted that we have a gelato at D’Ambrosio. I suggested sharing but he played a sympathy card when the young woman admitted it had been a very slow day. At 4:15 p.m. we were transaction number ten. Every flavor on hand. Martin’s first chance to try pistachio.

Mrs. Viggh’s mittens

We sat in the window and I tried to make eye contact with the few passing pedestrians, exaggerating (but only slightly) my pleasure in my choice of malted milk and pistachio for my two flavors.

I’ve been feeling very fortunate the last few days…that I got home from First Hill, that I don’t get automated phone calls from Seattle Public Schools at 6:30 a.m., that we have a working furnace within an uninsulated but well-roofed home, that we’re not trying to move two households across icy roads the way we were two years ago…that kitty Bella is so in love with snow. Hearing the wind howl last night creating wind chills near zero, who couldn’t be thinking of people without shelter or still trying to get home?

Our outing was leisurely…the library, browsing, gelato, sampling at Savour, lettuce from the Sunset Hill Green Market, then home. Chuck Genuardi had been to the airport to pick up his parents. He reported there was still a lot of snow on I-5. There’s still a Metro bus sitting cold and dark on 24th NW. But we found three frozen ham bones in our freezer and Martin is making soup. And D’Ambrosio Gelato was going to try to stay open till 10 p.m. (I’d call first in case there hasn’t been a transaction eleven) but who knew that something so cold could still be so right on a day that wouldn’t melt ice?